Hello's to all my internet friends out there! I trust this day finds you well in health and spirit.
Today, I want to talk about something I really know nothing about. So, this should allow for lots of room for thought.
The subject for today's blog is Wisdom Teeth. What's the deal with wisdom teeth, why do we get them and why do we throw them away?
I've done the immediate research that I could do on the web and it appears that almost all entries on this subject are posted by a member of the dental profession who basically says that you don't need them and you should just get rid of them. I wonder if this type of advice has allowed the oral community to stay in business as it has grown over the years.
Here's a quick question: How many of you remember the days when you could just show up at a dentist's office and have him pull a tooth or just fill a cavity in less than a half hour and only charge you $25 to $50 dollars for the whole job? I do.
Nowadays, their focus is on your smile. They aren't dentists in the original sense of the word. Some won't even pull a tooth; they send you to an oral surgeon instead. It's all about how much they can get out of you without having to actually take out a tooth.
Which begs the question, will the dentist remove a wisdom tooth. Probably not, or at least not today anyway. Either you will get sent to the oral surgeon, who has his own way of doing things, or the dentist will first need to take x-rays. He may provide you with a prescription for pain medicine, if you are lucky and then reschedule you to come back on another day for the actual extraction at which time he will also need to perform a root canal. Suddenly, the cost of pulling the wisdom tooth has shot up like Jack's bean stalk to a whopping $700!!
Do you need dental insurance? You're damn right you do! You need it but not to help cover the cost of the dental work. You need it to help cover the charges that have been run up by the dentists themselves. Ever wonder why dental insurance only covers so much of the dental bill and you still get stuck with a humongous debt? They know!
So, what's so special about the wisdom tooth and why is it called that. My research tells me, ad nauseum, that early man used them, are you ready for this?,............ to eat with! Imagine that! 4 extra teeth to eat with. Who'da thunk that to be a good idea? Oh yeah! God would have. Could it be that the extra teeth would actually make it easier for our digestive systems to process our food and combat obesity? Hmm.
And why is it called the wisdom tooth? Well, they say that it's because they come later in life, during your late teens and early twenties when we have become so much wiser. Raise of hands; how many of you have actually found that wisdom comes from such an age? Are you kidding? We are just discovering life at that age. Wisdom is much farther down the road.
So, let me surmise a premise. I offer this for your consideration. Our ancestors were smarter than us. Ever wonder how the pyramids were built? Other wonders in this world of archeological significance, the stone faces on Easter Island and Stonehenge come to mind, still make us wonder today how they got there.
Even cave drawings tend to make us wonder if extraterrestrials have been here before. How could our ancestors have communicated with such beings? What is the difference between them and us today?
I offer you this; our ancestors most likely had their wisdom teeth. The third set of molars, those that were probably trying to grow in when you had them pulled, could it be that they are the key to vast knowledge?
Maybe it is these teeth that allow use of the parts of the brain that today lie dormant and unused.
Maybe, just maybe, it was not until after people started losing their third molars that humankind began to refer to them as wisdom teeth due to a definite loss of intellect that coincided with the loss of the tooth.
Just think. Our ancestors probably had to allow the tooth to reach it's potential. Though it was painful, it probably was no more painful than that of a baby cutting it's teath. Little babies can endure such pain and get over it. But have we, as adults, become such wimps that we choose not to endure it? We are wusses, and our fear of the pain prevents us from reaching our full potential. Not only could the wisdom one gains from allowing the third molars to grow in completely, vastly increase one's knowledge, but could it also be the cure for obesity in the United States? Food for thought. We may never know until we allow the first molar from the jaw to grow in.
